Mike Friend, retired Technology Director for Boeing Aircraft, and Gabriel DeVault, head of drivetrain development for ZeroAvia, are putting a Zero motorcycle motor into Mike’s Spark Solo. There are perhaps dozens of Zero motors flying today, and the 42-pound unit has evolved to powering even two-seat motorgliders like Gabriel’s Sonex Xenos. An Ambitious Project Mike came up with the Spark Solo design as a way to, “Encompass the design process” as well as the “piloting and fabricating” aspects of a project. He wanted to, “Define an airplane uniquely designed around electric propulsion,” noting that, “Past efforts have almost always been adaptations of internal-combustion powered airplanes.” To help forward his design, Mike has been working with his local EAA chapter, for which he is past president. Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) chapter 406, “Is creating BACE (Bremerton Aviation Center for Education), a place where people can come to learn hands-on skills in airplane design, construction, and maintenance. Our shop area and flight …
Rising Oil Prices a “Wake-up Call”
With revolt and possible revolution threatening the shutdown of the Suez Canal and driving crude oil prices up, a recent article in Flight Global merits reflection. Flight Global’s lead sums up a threat and a hope in one tidy paragraph. “The International Energy Agency raised an alarming note as our power-hungry lives got back into gear after the holidays. ‘Oil prices are entering a dangerous zone for the global economy. The oil import bills are becoming a threat to the economic recovery. This is a wake-up call to the oil-consuming countries and to the oil producers,’ it said.” With fuel prices at the end of 2010 up one-fifth over those at the end of 2009, ticket prices necessarily follow, with the danger of lower passenger loads, fewer flights, and generally diminished convenience and economy for air travellers. Some carriers such as RyanAir, already notorious for suggesting pay toilets on their airliners, tactically hedge by buying an oil company’s future reserves …